What Makes The Mezzanine's Writing Style Unique?
Image of a man riding an escalator. Found here and cited below.
In class we have established that Nicholson Baker’s The Mezzanine hosts unique prose, but what exactly about his writing style is so distinctive that we must question its viability as a novel? While there are many eccentricities in his book, I think his unusual use of plot, theme, descriptions, footnotes, and thought quantification makes his writing so unparalleled.
One of Baker’s most distinctive stylistic choices is his use of footnotes. These are not mere annotations but integral parts of the narrative that expand on and complicate the text. For example, Howie takes three pages worth of footnotes to reflect on grooves in escalators, ice skates, and record players before returning back to trends in shoe laces (Baker 66-68). His use of footnotes represent the nonlinear digression of thoughts in a way no other book has before him.
Speaking of, Baker's use of footnotes contributes to a non-traditional plot. While traditional fiction books follow a plot with a clear beginning, middle, and end, Baker jumps around time through his memories and impressions creating a squiggly line of branches off a traditional story arc. However, what I find most intriguing about his use of plot is that on the surface very little actually happens over the course of his lunch break and escalator ride. Yet, somehow he manages to be engaging through his introspections, seemingly unrelated past experiences, and three pages of footnotes. He maintains our interest through thoroughly describing and defamiliarizing everyday objects and interactions. For example, after Howie strolls through a CVS in search of shoe laces, he gives some thought to earplugs, which leads to a three-page footnote about how he visualized sheep jumping to escape his nighttime anxieties. The footnote reads:
“The practiced crook of the sheep dispatcher travels over her herd, pointing: ‘You, you, you’; she repeats my address again and again to her nodding subjects [sheep]; and my personal flock departs fifteen minutes later, with a voucher to be signed on arrival” (Baker 110).
I think it’s fair to say that not many of us have sat down to think about which technique for falling asleep works best, and even fewer construct a complex story about how sheep commute to appear in our dreams. While reading about sheep, one gets lost in the intricacies of Howie’s imagination, completely forgetting the original mission of walking to CVS to find shoelaces, an utterly mundane, dare I say, boring activity. In a way Howie’s long footnote tangents serve to distract himself from the same real life concerns he wishes to escape by contemplating sheep.
In addition to Howie’s defamiliarization of everyday occurrences, it is also his logical descriptions and quantifications of thoughts that make his writing unique and worth reading. While sitting on a bench during his last ten minutes of lunch break, he quantifies the annual occurrences of his thoughts. He estimated he thinks of L. 580 times and the urge to kill 13 times per year (Baker 127-128). He states that:
“There were way, way too many of them [thoughts]. Yet this ranking of periodicity, as an ideal description, was the best I could do that afternoon. Introspection was the only slightly philosophical activity I felt capable of practicing, sitting on the bench in the sun, waiting until the last possible minute before I went back into work.” (Baker 128).
This quote is an example of Howie’s extravagant efforts to describe his innermost thoughts, going as far as to attempt to quantify them no matter how inaccurate he is. These unusual attempts to quantify thoughts are intriguing, as we all have thoughts, but few of us have bothered to go to the length Howie has to understand them. Baker also introduces the theme of escapism again. Howie himself states that he attempts to have philosophical thoughts to feel fulfilled in his own life, even avoiding going back to work.
Nicholas Baker’s The Mezzanine is a novel that defies traditional narrative conventions through its unique use of plot, footnotes, detailed descriptions, and quantification of thoughts to explore themes of escapism. These elements work together to create a distinctive reading experience that challenges and expands the boundaries of conventional fiction. What other aspects of Baker’s writing do you find particularly unique or compelling in The Mezzanine?
Citations:
The Mezzanine. New York, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1988, pp. 1–135.
Goudreau, Jenna. “A New Obstacle for Professional Women: The Glass Escalator.” Forbes, www.forbes.com/sites/jennagoudreau/2012/05/21/a-new-obstacle-for-professional-women-the-glass-escalator/.
Sasha, reading this blog after the completion of the Mezzanine was a wonderful way to end this segment of the english class due to you provocation of appreciation I have for the writing of Nicholas Baker. I also must agree with you declaration of some points in the book having to the opportunity to being completely mundane but with you analyzation of the writing style (and after also reading it) making the information more a hundredfold more interesting. And to answer your question: the return to the timeline every now and then while being sure to register that we were receiving a flashback made the readings more delightful.
ReplyDeleteI like the observation that many of the footnotes, in their unique way, do contribute to the "plot" of this unconventional novel in unexpected ways. They would appear, on the surface level, to literally deviate or devolve from the "main" plot/text, in that most of them have nothing to do with the "forward/upward progress" of the escalator narrative (or the lunch hour preceding it). As Baker himself notes late in the novel, they might even appear to be extraneous or "skippable" material that isn't even important to the main plot. But as you note, some of these become like short stories in themselves--whether it's a deep dive into Howie's getting-to-sleep rituals (one of my personal faves) or a more personal/autobiographical digression into doorknobs, neckties, and his relationship with his father. (And he also buries some of the funniest lines deep within these footnotes--there are rewards for slogging through the tiny type!)
ReplyDeleteIt is clearly true that the novel is strange and rather unparalleled with Baker's unique writing style, but I appreciate your highlights of why exactly this is true. You discuss Howie's extreme introspection and use the term escapism (a term I don't recall using in class, but certainly highlights his tendencies). I agree that The Mezzanine is worth reading because it's so unique, and brings things to your attention that you never would have meditated on otherwise. Additionally, the book's branch-like structure is quite interesting yet surprisingly easy to follow. Great post!
ReplyDeleteHi Sasha! I liked how you noted that we often talk about the certainly unique writing style of The Mezzanine but have never specifically identified the qualities and traits making it so. Not only do the footnotes add much more to Baker's already-dense writing, but I like how you mentioned that a lot of the plot of The Mezzanine doesn't even occur during the span of his escalator ride. I feel The Mezzanine has some certain sad undertones you did a great job talking about within this post -- Howie seems to be avoidant, almost, and I think Baker's lengthy writing only serves to distract Howie from those real-life concerns you identified. This makes me question whether Howie is truly as happy-go-lucky as he'd like to be perceived. Overall I love your portrayal of escapism and this is a great post!
ReplyDeleteI appreciate how you acknowledged how the Mezzanine doesn't just employ the "main" body of this novel to propel the entire narrative. His observations aren't just done in descriptions of fleeting thoughts he has on the escalator: instead, he even makes use of footnotes to make sure we can trace the entire path his thought takes till the very end. I found this element of the novel particularly interesting in that the footnotes themselves served to enhance the body of this novel despite the outward "mundaneness" of a trip up the escalator. Even though I knew I would be resurfacing from the footnotes just to read about another element of the escalator setting, I still found myself somewhat excited to make it back to the body after every footnote, and I found it interesting how Baker manages to do that with his double use of prose and footnotes. Great blog topic and post!
ReplyDeleteI really like your point about how the footnotes add to the theme of escapism seen throughout the novel. If The Mezzanine is Howie trying to map out the way his mind works and how it wanders, considering the fact he has a tendency towards escapism, I think the footnotes are a perfect illustration of how this escapism works in his mind. While the actual bulk of the plot in this novel might be pretty mundane, Howie successfully brings us out of that mundaneness by getting us lost in the same side tracks his mind goes to while writing. We find ourselves forgetting the main plot of the novel while reading one of the 3 page long footnotes, and this is exactly what Howie is trying to illustrate to us, showing us the ways he escapes from the boring realities of his corporate life. This was a really good blog, really well written and super interesting! Good job Sasha!
ReplyDeleteI love your point about how one of the ways Baker's writing style is unique is the quantification of his thoughts. When thinking of why The Mezzanine was so unique, I often thought about the obvious depth of the content Howie goes into, and Baker's use of footnotes, but talking about how Howie uses numbers to classify thoughts is such an important point as well! Like you said, the uniqueness of this trait comes from the fact that not many people would even attempt to count their thoughts, such as how many times they think about a person or have an urge to kill, no matter if the accuracy of their quantification doesn't matter at all. This is such an interesting blog post! Great job!
ReplyDeleteNice post Sasha! I like that you emphasize that Howie's logical descriptions draw the reader in and make the book worth reading. At first, I didn't understand the point of these long descriptions, but as I kept reading, I learned to appreciate the writing and it made The Mezzanine more enjoyable.
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